Waiting for it to get "hard"

No, not THAT "it". Pervs.

What's making me nervous is while I'm working out 5-6 days a week and am religiously counting calories, so far it has not been all that difficult to lose weight. Basically I've had to increase my physical activity through cardio and strength training, and I've had to restrict my caloric intake by finding nutritious foods that are much lower in calories than foods I ate previously.

The thing that has been difficult to cope with has been the cravings. This is month #2 of my journey to health and fitness, and there are foods I am desperately craving right now. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but I could kill a 3 Musketeers bar right now. I really like those. Mostly my cravings are for foods of the fried, melty/cheesy, salty variety. Fried chicken. Nachos. Pizza. Enchiladas. Chips and queso. Flautas and taquitos coated in sour cream. Hot dogs with ketchup, mustard, and relish. Barbecue. Oh god, barbecue. Riiiiiiiiiiibs. Briiiiiiiiisket. I'm drooling.

Before I started trying to lose weight, I would eat those things often. Sometimes, I'd eat all of them at least once in a single week.

I'm not one of those people who is going to try to make excuses for my size. "I had a rough childhood." "It's glandular." "I have big bones." "It runs in my family." "I simply look at cake and I gain 5 pounds." "I've tried everything." "I eat like a bird and I can't lose a single pound."

Sorry, but bullshit. Major, utter, total bullshit. There are conditions and medications that can cause you to gain weight or make it difficult to lose weight, but the vast majority of the time people are overweight because they eat too much and don't exercise enough, if at all. In a nutshell, overweight/obesity is the path of least resistance in this country and far too many people are happy to let their genetic and/or metabolic tendencies towards obesity take over as they scarf down cheesecake, burgers, pizza, tacos, and look miserably at the thin women in the room happily laughing with their friends and families and wonder why that can't be them.

It can. Put down the fucking fork and get up off your ass and it can. This POV is controversial among fellow "fatties" and especially in the "fat acceptance" movement. However, it is honestly how I feel. I feel a lot of obesity is down to genetic/metabolic tendencies that, coupled with a poor diet and low activity, conspire to make someone obese. People need to stop thinking of food as pleasure and start thinking of it as fuel. Different types of engines (people) work most efficiently with different types of fuel (food). Some engines can take a really rich mixture. Some can't.

I will freely admit that I ate and couch potato'd my way into morbid obesity. Yup. I did it to myself. I graduated high school a size 4-6. Then, I ate. And ate. And ate and ate and ate and ate. Over the years as the pounds piled on, I kept meaning to cut back. I meant to work out. I meant to change my lifestyle. I didn't. I zoomed through the single digit sizes, then worked my way through the teens until I was a size 24. Twenty fucking four. That is really hard to take for someone who used to be so slim that she could wear a size "extra small" skirt from The Gap, and who darkened the doorways of Banana Republic, The Limited, and J. Crew on a regular basis, wearing their beautiful and trendy clothing.

Now that I have changed my lifestyle, I've lost 17.8 lbs in 7 1/2 weeks. I intend to keep on losing until I reach a healthy weight of 150 lbs, after which I will step back and take a well-deserved maintenance break. My ultimate goal is to get down into the low 130s-high 120s, but that will come later. Getting down to 150 is good enough to put me at a healthy weight and to vastly reduce my risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Am I jealous of thin people who don't have to watch what they eat very closely, and who don't exercise very much? Of course I am! I wish I could eat tacos and pizza and fried chicken and still be a size 8! However, I can't. I had to decide what was more important to me: food, or living to see age 50.

I made my decision. It's up to everyone to make theirs, but I believe that obesity is by and large a self-inflicted condition. I do not feel sorry for people who have eaten their way into obesity, and I do not expect sympathy from others. I don't think it's right for people to treat me badly because of what I've done to my body, but at the same time I do not expect anyone to tell me that it isn't my fault. And...if they did, I'd tell them they were wrong.

It is my fault. I did it to myself. Ultimately, I decided what to shovel into my gullet. Nobody held me down and force-fed me. I'm taking responsibility.